But settling with O'Donnell Dubh was the first duty he had. Brian recalled his torture and the agony of Cathbarr every time he entered the hall. The iron rings that had been in the floor he had already torn out, while Nuala had taken for her own the lonely wolfhound, which had been left behind by the Dark Master. But Brian, who put all his desire for vengeance in the wish to "get back his Spanish blade," could hardly turn around without having some phase of his sufferings brought back to him.
The men who had been thrown out along the roads had fetched in word that the Dark Master had ridden for Galway, so Brian had great hopes that Turlough would bring back some definite news. If O'Donnell settled in the city, he was determined to go in at all risks and seek out his enemy face to face; the O'Malleys were on good terms with the Bodkins, who in old Galway played Capulet to the Montague of the Lynch family, and he would be able to command some help in that quarter.
On the fifth day after the castle had been taken, a galley came over from Gorumna Castle bearing news. Cromwell had failed before Duncannon, and promised to fail again at Waterford, and hope was rising high among the royalists, while O'Neill's Ulster army was biding its time in the north until a new leader was chosen by the Confederacy to make head with Ormond against the Parliament armies.
Upon this the O'Malley rovers were impatient to revictual at Gorumna and be off to the south after plunder, so Nuala decided to leave Bertragh the next morning. That night, after Cathbarr had drunk himself asleep and the O'Malleys had sought their ships, the Bird Daughter unexpectedly became very cordial toward Brian once more, and they sat up late before the fireplace.
Brian did not understand it, but he was quite willing to accept it, and when the talk turned on personal matters he was careful to ask no questions concerning Nuala's plans for the future. Instead, he told her tales of his life at the Spanish court, which interested her vastly, until in the end she broke forth with a passionate outburst.
"Oh, I wish I were a man!" she cried softly and eagerly, looking into the red embers. "All my life I have been among men, and yet not of them; I have had to do with guns and ships and powder, and I think I have not done so ill, yet I have had dreams of other things—things which I hardly know myself."
Astonished though he was at her sudden unfolding of herself, Brian looked at her gravely, his blue eyes very soft as he pierced to her thought.
"Yes," he said gently, "you are a woman, Bird Daughter—and if you were a man I think that you might have gain, but others would have great loss."
"Eh?" She looked straightly at him, unfearing his half-expressed thought. "I do not seek idle compliments, Yellow Brian, from those who serve me."